


Kissing Fever

by honeybeem



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Idiots in Love, M/M, Other, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybeem/pseuds/honeybeem
Summary: Aziraphale dreams a meeting with The Almighty on the subject of kissing. This then leads to the irritating question - 'what happens when an angel kisses a demon?'
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Kissing Fever

She praised herself on having a sense of humour. Granted there were the plagues and the flooding but She had imagined the blobfish and the tandem bicycle too.  
Okay, so the latter was a human invention, but She designed the humans and you had to admit that freewill was most definitely a grey area.  
The point was that She was funny - at least to her own omnipotent self she was - and when opportunity struck - as it always did when she willed it to - she took it.  
And so, in short, instead of leaving Aziraphale to dream away their encounter (for he had sought her council in his sleep and She had granted it), when She was through with their meeting she had let him drift back to Earth slowly, unconsciously, until his wings met the feather top mattress of a display bed in the window of a Maida Vale bedroom furniture stockist called ‘Heavenly Sleeps’.  
Oh She was a wit. Although the shop owner - a portly man of nearly 60 who has just this moment dropped his coffee in shock - is yet to see the funny side.  
Despite the shattering of Mr Flint’s second best mug and the subsequent choice words the shopkeep throws out to him (and the coffee, and the floor), Aziraphale does not stir.  
Mr Flint has seen some things in his time, those in retail aren’t immune to the exposure of the very dregs of society simply because they run a respectable furniture business. No, there had been threats, verbal abuse and that one time a lad tried to steal a floor lamp, but never has anyone had the very cheek to spend the night in one of his display beds (and one of the velvet upholstered ones too).  
Unsure what to do first, Mr Flint decides on heading to the kitchen out the back for a cloth and a dustpan and brush. The potency of his ‘first thing’ coffee is likely to stain the tiling and no customer is going to be buying a bed from a shop that can’t even keep its storefront clean.  
But curiosity grips him. It’s the wings. That and the buttondown tartan nightclothes. For together they make an odd pairing. If this stranger had just the wings he’d be more convinced that this was either a wild bet (maybe a stag party dare - he had been young once after all and knew of these things), or possibly an ‘art’ thing. This he knew less of but still had a keen enough eye to know that this odd celestial set-up wouldn’t look too out of place at the Tate Modern.  
But it was the tartan. The man looked resectable, if not a touch eccentric. Certainly not one who would volunteer for a final night of debauchery with his mates or to be the model in an art installation.  
It could be a Banksy though. That thought piqued his interest further. Banksy was all about his social comments and off-the-wall (or, indeed often on the wall) execution. What political or ethical commentary could this man in checked pyjamas and white wings be trying to convey? Did this mean he - humble shop owner - had now come into a large windfall? Maybe this man was actually made of wax and he could sell him for millions and finally retire up North to the countryside or to Spain.  
As if on cue, the tartan angel gives the softest of sighs, and with it Mr Flint’s holiday home in Palma de Mallorca goes up in smoke.  
He sighs and heads off to get the cleaning supplies.  
In the time it takes for him to return, the second strangest thing to happen in his shop happens and now a man in all black and sunglasses is in the doorway.  
I mean, honestly, it is barely 7am in the middle of winter, what need was there for sunglasses?  
Maybe it was Banksy.  
"How did you get in my shop?" Mr Flint says, not in the friendliest of tones. "And are you behind this..nonsense?" He gestures to the occupied bed.  
The man in black has the audacity to look disgruntled by the questions. His brows come together and he tightens his jaw as if he’s stopping himself from saying something unpleasant.  
"Well?" Mr Flint says.  
He had always been a man loyal to his community. When friends said ‘this neighbourhood is going to the dogs’ or ‘you’d never had seen this happen back in the glory days’, Mr Flint would casually wave a hand and mutter something along the lines of ‘it’s not so bad’ or ‘rose-tinted spectacles’.  
But he had to admit, maybe he was a bit lax on security. He was never one for big metal shutters and bolts on the door. Maybe that was his problem.  
But then, there had been no forced entry by the seems of it, no damage to the windows, the ceiling or the floor (well, apart from the coffee stain of - technically - his own doing).  
The man in black walks over to the bed, shakes the shoulders of tweedy and says in more of a hiss than a whisper "Angel…"  
At least sunglasses sounds uncomfortable with the situation. Good, so he should. Is this really what shop owners should be dealing with these days?  
"He made me break my mug, had it more than a decade I had," says Mr Flint, because what better way is there to fill the awkward silence than with guilt-tripping?  
Sunglasses looks over his shoulder at the puddle of black coffee on the tiling, peppered with the shards of Mr Flint’s Crete 2009 commemorative mug.  
Without a word, the man in black saunters (really? Sauntering around in a shop you’re trespassing in and all before breakfast?) over to the puddle. He stoops down and takes the broken handle and a big chunk of the vessel in his hand.  
"Not broken," the man says in a bored sort of tone.  
"What do you mean, not broken? It’s bloody smashed to bits.” Flint is getting angry now. The situation is weird and curious but this man in shades is infuriating. How dare he swagger into his business, have the gall to look bored, and then contradict what is so evidently the case.  
The man gets up, and in Mr Flint’s anger he does not register what is in his hand before it is being thrust into his own.  
"Not broken," says sunglasses again, but this time he is close to Mr Flint’s face, his eyes - what the shopkeeper can make of them - peering into his with great severity.  
"Not broken," he repeats "but I think it’s about time you clean up that mess on the tiles, don’t you?"  
Mr Flint’s fingers automatically run across the mug now in his hands. A mug that is - as had been claimed many times in the last few seconds - not broken.  
A very small voice in the back of his mind suggests that this suddenly unbroken cup should be questioned, but this is silenced by a much louder voice, almost screaming it seems, to go and tidy up.  
As soon as Mr Flint puts down the mug on a nearby bedside table and gets to his hands and knees to clean up the coffee puddle, all voices inside his head quietens, and he finds himself utterly consumed in the task at hand.

Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose for compelling gives him a headache nowadays. Not to mention, he has been rudely awakened by what he calls his angel signal. He has never actually called it that aloud, but it is what he personally refers to it as. Whenever something is slightly ‘off’ with Aziraphale - existential dread, refusal of dessert, captured by the French - he knows about it. It’s something he has put down to six millennia of acquaintanceship, because he definitely doesn’t want to pull at that thread of questioning anytime soon.  
And so, like countless times before, he was awakened and summoned (so to speak). But this time to a bed shop in North London, where he was presented with the sight of an angel sleeping.  
Crowley looks from the busy bed shop owner to the cause of his early morning start. He has never seen Aziraphale sleeping and if he had stumbled upon this sight in - say - the bookshop or the back of the Bentley, he would have relished in the picture.  
The slack face of contentment, the soft spread of eyelashes, slightly curled form, and those bright white wings, catching even the weakest of winter morning sunlight.  
Oh Satan, his wings.  
Humans weren’t accustomed to strangers in their display beds, they definitely weren’t accustomed to winged strangers in their display beds.  
"Aziraphale," says Crowley in a hissing whisper, face right up close to the angel’s ear like he’s imparting a secret."Your wingssss are showing."  
Aziraphale’s eyes scrunch up and then relax, mouth opening and shutting as if testing a reply.  
"The Almighty," he finally says, voice little more than a sigh and heavy with sleep. Then "Crowley dear."  
His eyes shoot open - a few seconds of blind confusion - before his vision settles on the aforementioned demon and Aziraphale is scrambling to some kind of upward position, momentarily pulled off-kilter by the weight of his outstretched wings.  
Much like a sparrow - or any typical garden bird really - that finds itself mistakenly in someone’s house (or shop, in this case), Aziraphale’s wings thrash about in panic, upsetting a number of pillows, a bedside table lamp, and much of the signage that explains that this very bed that he has chosen to sleep on is on sale until Sunday.  
Mr Flint, who is working himself into an almost feverish polishing routine of the now gleaming tiled entrance, doesn’t look up from his tidying.  
"Easy Angel, it’s fine," Crowley says, one hand outstretched in a gesture of calm. He shrugs, "well, apart from the fact you’ve broken into a bed shop and you’re halfway across London in your pyjamas.”  
At this, Aziraphale looks down in horror, wings folding around him in an attempt at modesty. It achieves nothing but knocking the runner off the bed.  
"Put your wings away," Crowley suggests through his teeth.  
"Right….yes," and Aziraphale does just that, now looking nothing more than a dishevelled man in elaborate nightclothes who has sneaked into a bed shop.  
"The Almighty," he says again, voice still muffled by lingering drowsiness.  
"You said," Crowley replies, offering the angel a hand so he can get out of this bed and as far away from this blessed shop as possible.  
"She was...I was," Aziraphale adds dreamily, climbing down from the bed with the aid of Crowley’s hand. When it’s time to stand on his own two feet, he feels himself buckle. Crowley pulls an arm around him and grips his shoulder tightly.  
"Breakfast," Crowley says. "That will set the world to rights.”

*

Angel curls are a truly majestic thing, and who would have thought their majesty would only be heightened by a number of hours pressed tight against a pillow.  
Crowley can barely concentrate on a single thing Aziraphale is saying. He’s utterly transfixed by the glorious halo - for that is surely what it should be called - of curls standing about Aziraphale’s head.  
They had gone to a cafe - or a ‘caff’ as it’s more commonly known. While he could have miracled Aziraphale some clothes, he had thought it best to give him an overcoat and shoes, for he was quite liking the sight of the angel in pyjamas. Aziraphale, still in a fuddled state, hadn’t protested, and they had found a nearby cafe where the only type of toast they served was doorstop and the tea was the colour of mahogany.  
"Are you even listening, Crowley?" Aziraphale says, his state having changed from confused to irritable ever since being served his full English. ‘Hetty’s Rest Stop’ was certainly not the Ritz.  
"Hmm," Crowley croons, eyes unable to pull away from the hair.  
"I said I’m worried, Crowley," Aziraphale repeats, cutting himself a slice of toast and bacon and running it through leftover baked bean sauce. He looks at the forkful with utter misery before dropping it back down on the plate and sighing. "I think I spoke to the Almighty last night.”  
"It was a dream," Crowley says, wondering if he could touch one of the curls without Aziraphale even noticing.  
"It wasn’t a dream, it was real...I felt it.”  
Aziraphale picks up his cup of tea but instead of taking a sip, he just stares into it.  
"How many dreams have you had since creation? Do you even know what a dream is?" Crowley pulls his chair forward, arm reaching over to the back of Aziraphale’s in what he hopes looks like a comforting gesture.  
"Well…" Aziraphale puts down his cup and tries his fork again, taking a little nibble before putting it back on the plate. "If truth be told, this is the first time I’ve slept in...well...I can’t remember. But I know what dreams are, I’ve read about dreams. This was something else.”  
He pushes his plate away.  
"Dreams are just dreams, they can seem real but they’re not," Crowley offers, fingers grazing the loop of a curl at the nape of Aziraphale’s neck.  
"And are your dreams...vivid?"  
"Oh yeah, sometimes anyway."  
"And what do you dream about?"  
That gets Crowley’s attention, in fact he even retracts his hand and straightens in his seat a little.  
"Y’know, things. Ordinary things...driving cars, plotting evil deeds, eating a good lunch.”  
This is, in fact, a lie. For out of the past twenty or so dreams he could remember, none had involved Bentleys or cucumber sandwiches but instead involved a certain angelic acquaintance sat opposite him, wearing a lot less than he was wearing now. Could this be counted as an evil deed? Possibly.  
"And you recall some of these dreams as if you were there?"  
"Sometimes I wake up thinking I can still taste lunch in my mouth, Angel.”  
This gives Aziraphale something to think about. He reaches for the cloth napkin that usually adorns his lap during mealtimes. Seeing none there, he takes a paper tissue from the dispenser by the table’s cutlery holder and pats it across his face.  
"Do you want to know what The Almighty discussed in this….dream?" He says with a note of apprehension.  
"I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway," Crowley says, taking a bite of his own toast and washing it down with his builder’s brew.  
Aziraphale lets out a little laugh, wringing the tissue in his hands. "Kissing," he says, somewhat hysterically, looking over his shoulder at the group of workmen sat at the opposite end of the diner.  
"You what?" Crowley says a touch too loudly.  
"I know, I know.." Aziraphale says quickly, lowering his voice to one that’s barely audible over the sounds of the sizzling fat and the clang of cheap crockery coming from the open kitchen. "I am honestly quite ashamed of myself."  
"Kissing?" Crowley asks, for surely he’s heard this wrong.  
When Aziraphale doesn’t answer straight away, Crowley adds "Kissing who?"  
This is met with a blush, one that spreads like wildfire to the tips of the angel’s ears.  
"Not kissing anyone in particular," Aziraphale says. "Just kissing in general...in practical terms. I wanted to know if it’s okay for an angel to kiss.  
"So you called for a meeting with the Almighty to ask her if you could kiss?" Crowley questions, unable to keep the pettiness out of his tone.  
"You said yourself it was just a dream...besides, I bet you’ve wondered about these things, haven’t you?"  
"I’m a demon, I can kiss whoever I want," Crowley says and as soon as he does his insides squirm. If he could turn into a snake at this very moment and slither away, he would. With that option out of the question, he simply adds, "but I’ve never thought about kissing.”  
This is, in fact, also a lie. He has thought about kissing the very being sat opposite him no fewer than 3864 times. Just a few moments ago he was wondering what it would be like to bury his face in his curls and kiss the top of his head.  
Aziraphale takes a sip of his tea and grimaces. He really was more of an Earl Grey entity.  
"Well I’m not ashamed to say that I have on occasions," he gives the demon’s face a quick visual appraisal, "thought about kissing…" He takes the crumpled paper napkin from the table and swipes it across his mouth, finishing his sentence with a "you" as he does.  
Crowley is sure he has misheard, there’s no way he has heard that correctly, and yet the mere possibility of it is making him choke on his tea.  
Aziraphale rolls his eyes, "alright dear, the notion isn’t that fantastical.”  
"And...err...in this dream, what did the Almighty say about kissing?"  
"Nothing I couldn’t have learnt from a kindly vicar I’m sure," Aziraphale takes another sip of tea just to stop his mouth from drying.  
Crowley’s brow furrows, wondering what exact wisdom this could be, before Aziraphale scrapes his chair back and he’s turning to the demon with wide eyes.  
"Would you kiss me?" He says, like there’s a lot riding on this answer.  
"What? Here?" Crowley asks, looking around. He had thought of many places he’d like to kiss the angel but here with its grease stains on the ceiling, a band of blokes in hi-vis in the corner, a signed portrait of David Essex staring down at them from the front counter - this wasn’t one of them.  
"No not here," Aziraphale snaps. "Somewhere discreet where we won’t be seen by any of our lot.”  
Crowley can’t help but look around again. There certainly wasn’t anything you could deem ‘angelic’ in the diner. The sweaty cook with his armpit stains and blackened fingernails wouldn’t look too out of place in the depths of the below but Crowley knows a demon when he sees one.  
Something warm washes over the back of his hand and he sees that Aziraphale has placed his fingers over his knuckles, the very sensation of this featherlight touch spreads up his arm and across his chest, up to his head - he feels a bit queasy.  
"Would you like to though?" Aziraphale asks.  
And at that, Crowley is up out of his seat. "C’mon, I know a place.”

*

"A place" is a loose term for the off-shoot corridor of a spindly little Victorian shopping arcade in one of the quieter neighbourhoods of Pimlico. It’s where Crowley comes to think. It’s near an antique leather-binding shop and a delicatessen - something about the smell of these two establishments so close together grounds him.  
It’s the aesthetics too, the steel frames defining a narrow glass roof, the exposed brick, dusty windows, the nookish chaos of a century Crowley wasn’t all that fond of at the time and yet reflects on with something close to affection (mainly because he was asleep for most of it and can now view it with the nostalgia of someone who wasn’t actually there). He also likes the sound the rain makes and the squeals of shoppers when they’re caught in a shower and have to run inside here for shelter.  
As it hasn’t reached eight in the morning, the arcade is silent if only for the odd pair of shoes from a shopkeeper, the squeak of a distant awning being pulled out ahead of the day to come.  
Aziraphale is still wearing his pyjamas under his miracled overcoat. Crowley is staying quiet about it.  
"This is your ‘place’?" The angel asks, unsure what he had been expecting exactly.  
"Yes, I’ve been coming here for years. Never sensed a whiff of demon nor angel coming within streets of this place...well, until now.”  
"Right," Aziraphale says distractedly, looking from the old walls, to the roof and then to Crowley.  
Crowley thinks he hears the angel swallow, although that could be his own anatomy, for in this moment he feels very human. Or - at least - what he assumes it feels to be human. If he was reliant on the trivial mechanics of breathing in and out, he would no-doubt be gasping. He feels hot and yet his palms are wet and cold. He wants a drink but somewhere in the middle of his body something is telling him he would puke if he gave it anything but a release from this strange tension that is being scooped and piled higher and higher the longer Aziraphale just stands here and admires the bloody scenery.  
"Have you ever wondered what happens when an angel kisses a demon?...In practical terms I mean," Aziraphale says, stepping a little closer.  
"No, not really," Crowley says and he kicks himself for sounding so disinterested.  
Also, that is yet another lie of the morning. He has thought about it many times. What it would feel like, what it would taste like, even - on particularly dark days - whether he would explode on impact, like a mercy blow from Holy Water.  
"What if it hurts?" Aziraphale says.  
"C’mon Angel, it’s not going to hurt, why would it?" Crowley replies, more to convince himself than anything else.  
He holds out his hand, waggling his fingers for Aziraphale to take them and the angel does. There’s a light squeeze, and that warming sensation that spreads through him.  
"Touching hands is fine, kissing will be the same."  
"Okay," Aziraphale says, his hands noticeably shaking. "Jolly good," he adds before taking a good lengthy stride between the space and Crowley, and closing the gap. He screws up his eyes tight, so tight it makes his nose scrunch too, and his lips are puckered like he’s being forced to sip from a poisoned chalice rather than deliver a kiss.  
In any other situation, Crowley would laugh but he stops himself, stooping forward and placing his arms around the angel. Aziraphale flinches and as if on instinct (for why else would they make an appearance now of all times and places?) his wings stretch out, looking comically large in the cramped corridor of this Victorian arcade.  
Crowley outstretches his own, because why not add to this increasingly farcical scene? And as black feathers graze over the edges of Aziraphale’s white, the angel relaxes, his screwed up face loosening as he opens one eye.  
"Goodness," he mutters, surveying the canopy their wings have created. He looks Crowley dead in the eyes and smiles. "Much better," he says. Then he reaches out, takes Crowley’s sunglasses away from his face and pockets them into his overcoat. "Much, much better.”  
There is silence. The background noise of the adjacent avenues, the whirl of ever-present traffic, all muffled by downy feathers and thin hollow bone.  
"I don’t think we’ll explode," Aziraphale says.  
"I think I might if you don’t do something pretty bloody quickly.”  
"Right, okay." Aziraphale gives a curt nod.  
He leans in closer, silk pyjamas pressing against the leather front of the demon’s jacket and Crowley thinks the heat of it could burn him - hell, burn them both. A few more feathers are pushed against each other and it feels intimate. Sinfully intimate. Maybe Aziraphale feels the same way because for a few seconds he pauses, eyes shutting, mouth parting ever so slightly as if savouring the sensation. Crowley wishes he could do the same, but his mind is reeling, stuck on a feedback loop of ‘this morning has been very strange’ and ‘yes, because maybe it’s a dream’.  
Aziraphale tilts his head a little and Crowley mirrors him. In the moment just before their noses bump, the demon allows himself the luxury of touching that halo of angel curls. If this is to be the last thing he ever touches, it will be glorious.  
Unsurprisingly, Aziraphale’s hair is as soft as he is, like moss on beach stones without the cold, sliminess. What an odd thought.  
And just as Crowley can feel the shadow of lips upon his, Aziraphale draws back and says "do you think we’re the first demon and angel to do this?"  
Crowley makes a noise, something between a sigh and a moan. "I don’t know," he says, "maybe, probably. I don’t really care."  
“Okay, fine," the angel says with a little huff.  
"Hey, don’t ‘fine’ me, you’re the one who suggest-"  
There is a kiss. And they don’t explode.  
Aziraphale’s mouth is warm and sweet and as it rather forcefully lands upon Crowley’s it makes its presence known. It leaves the demon’s lips feeling bruised, burnt even, like they are nursing a slap or contact with hot tea. But from the painful sensation comes a flood of what Crowley can only liken to liquid sunshine. It runs across his cheeks, to his ears, through his hairline, dripping down his body until it pools into his feet and hands. His fingers go numb. In fact, he can’t even feel the warmth of Aziraphale’s hair in his hands. Maybe this is what angel kisses did. Nevermind the deadly venom from snake fangs, angel kisses paralysed you that much quicker.  
"ziraph," Crowley manages. But either he’s too quiet or Aziraphale ignores him, for as the demon’s mouth opens, in goes the angel’s hungry tongue. The forwardness takes Crowley by surprise and for a moment he is unsure what to do with this phenomenon. His own tongue, for one thing, feels as heavy and as unhelpful as a ball of wet rags. He returns the kiss as best he can, somewhat unsettled by the numbness extending through his body.  
"Crowley," Aziraphale breathes, and he sounds very unlike his usual self - husky, bewitched even.  
"Why have we never done this before?" The angel asks, moving his lips to the very corner of Crowley’s, leaving a trail of kisses down his jaw to his neck. Here he stays, taking bits of flesh between his teeth and nipping.  
"I don’t know, the thought has never crossed my…" Crowley replies, eyes shutting under the sudden brightness of Aziraphale’s wings reflecting the morning sun. "Do you feel strange? Light-headed?" he can’t help but notice how drunk he sounds, his voice ringing in his ears as if he’s never heard it before now.  
Aziraphale’s lips are on his again, so hot and painful Crowley half expects to hear the hiss of searing flesh.  
"I feel tempted," Aziraphale says, hands no longer bashfully at his side but exploring, pulling at buttons, bunching up fabrics, playing with the loops of Crowley’s belt."You’re tempting me," he says, but his tone is not accustational only playful.  
"I assure you," Crowley says, having to pause midsentence to get a grip on what he wants to say, "I’m not,” he swallows. “In fact, I think I’m about to faint.”  
And as soon as his thoughts align clearly enough for Crowley to realise he is about to faint, he does, the last sensation he manages to take in is that of his wings drooping against Aziraphale’s, his body sagging into the angel and everything feeling as hot as hellfire.


End file.
